Unity needed a union interference resolution. They told all their ducklings to vote for it, and of course they did. After all, they promised. Also, Unity’s told them they’d all lose their jobs if ABC won. It’s not really about interference, though. It’s a “Keep Unity in Power No Matter What” resolution. Nothing else matters. Certainly your health doesn’t matter.

Perish forbid the person who saved our health care (after Unity sold us out) should say so out loud.

If Unity can make members pay thousands extra in co-pays while keeping health care premium-free, that’s a victory (for them). If they can put off the upcoming 10% cut in member health care, that’s a victory too, they hope. If they can eke out a win in the most hotly contested union election in our history, well, that’s the whole enchilada right there. Nothing else matters to them.

Babies cry when they want something. It’s unseemly for adults to roll on their backs having temper tantrums. So Unity devises ever more convoluted ways to achieve their long cherished goal. What goal? Unity wants everyone who disagrees to sit down and shut up.

After all, Unity’s Prime Directive is to stay in power at any cost. When people oppose them it’s beyond inconvenient. There are jobs at stake! Not mundane member jobs, but important ones.

Boss jobs pay more, and must therefore be preserved at any cost Second pensions are endangered! Every year Mulgrew is not President will cost him quite a bit. After all, he’s not on some meager teacher salary. He loses triple what teachers do when his pension isn’t expanded.

Not only that, but Unity sees blood in the water, and it’s their own. Ever since Mulgrew sold out retiree health care for a big bag of nothing, members have been uppity. The retirees voted them out. A small band of paraprofessionals came up with an idea and a name, Fix Para Pay, and paras turned against Unity by a factor of three to one.

This just won’t do.

Now they could run on their record. But that’s another inconvenience. They know why they lost the last two elections. Retirees did not buy Mulgrew’s lie that Medicare Advantage was as good as real Medicare. Paras know, when Mulgrew had the chance to give them a significant pensionable salary increase, he gave them the middle finger instead.

So Unity put their heads together, and asked themselves this vital question—how can we get those bastards from ABC to sit down and shut up? After all, ABC is threatening to take over the union. Not only that, but they’re making noise about reflecting the will of membership. Everyone knows the United Federation of Teachers represents not membership, but rather the whims and caprices of King Mulgrew.

Who started this? It was that damned Marianne Pizzitola. She’s the one who ruined everything by jumping up and down and demanding retirees retain the health care they were promised all their careers. Not only that, but she got UFT retirees to agree with her. Now those bastards have voted them out!

How can we deal with this, Unity asks itself. We’ve tried making fun of retirees because they’re old, and while we applauded those efforts, they haven’t paid off. Even as after tolerating and openly praising a blatantly ageist District Representative, retirees refuse to get in line.

And Marianne? Who the hell does she think she is? She’s made Unity’s Very Smart People look like fools, over and over, in court no less. We’ve paid valuable lip service to no longer supporting Medicare Advantage, and still she comes after us. Not only that, but she’s telling our members, the ones we own, to vote for ABC simply because they’ll support legislation that supports her cause. The unmitigated audacity!

Frankly, she’s making us look bad. How long will it be before members notice that she’s protecting their rights while we are not? The retirees are our votes. We only allowed them to be union members so they’d keep our numbers up. Plus they vote in higher percentages than active members. Who the hell do they think they are? Why don’t they know their place?

Unity has nothing but contempt for retirees. No matter what Michael Mulgrew says, he wants us to lose our Medicare.

Mulgrew and Unity are saying that anyone opposed to their retiree injuring, healthcare depriving scheme should have NOTHING to do with our union. That’s beyond unacceptable if you’re a real live union advocate (like me).

Unity can certainly pass "union interference” resolutions and tell ABC not to associate with groups that support union. Still, they haven’t thought it through. No matter what they say, Marianne is a United States citizen, entitled to free speech. I know Marianne a little bit, and you’d best believe she’ll continue to speak as freely as she likes as much as she wishes. Unity can pass all the resolutions they want.

As for union interference, I was at the Spring Conference. The chancellor praised Mulgrew, and Mulgrew praised her right back. She should, of course, because Mulgrew’s Very Smart Deals could save the city a fortune if only retirees would sit down and shut up. Because we won’t, and because Unity thought we were a bunch of old fogies chasing kids off our lawns, the Health Stabilization Fund is bankrupt and the city claims the Municipal Labor Committee owes billions.

Was it okay when politicians at the Spring Conference told Mulgrew how wonderful he was? Did he grant Andrew Cuomo, the architect of Tier 6, a forum with educators out of the goodness of his heart?

Unity has no issue making last minute deals to retain votes. When New Action started taking high school seats, Randi made a deal with them not to take it further and oppose her. She gave them jobs and called them “the responsible opposition” somewhere. Opposition that keeps Unity in power, in her view, is doing the right thing. While this was the only instance I know of in which she bought off a group, it was far from the only time they’ve bought off opposition candidates with jobs.

Why is Mulgrew running around telling people where to build casinos? Does anyone believe he’s motivated by anything having to do with members? Does anyone believe members in one borough benefit from a casino while members in others will be harmed by it?

UFT may be shifting positions to curry favor with labor–developer alliances that benefit developers they favor while ignoring educational impact or membership input. Why would Mulgrew favor one developer over another? You’d have to ask him. Good luck trying to get an answer. Regardless, isn’t that interference? And hasn’t UFT got an actual history of interference with other unions?

While the Welfare Fund sat on almost a billion dollars, our dental plan was paying so little that recently, a UFT plan periodontist tried to charge me 160 bucks for a dental rinse for one half of my mouth. Rather than allow them to do the other as well, I told them if I’d wanted a dental rinse, I’d have bought a bottle of Scope for five bucks. CIGNA didn’t help, and I was sent to someone from Welfare Fund who didn’t help either. My credit card company, however, deemed it outrageous and reversed the charge.

Now, UFT is pushing minor improvements in the dental plan. They’re giving us more eyeglasses. They’re raising payment levels for hearing aids and SHIP. They’re running around trying to make up for screwing the paras in the last contract negotiation. Are they doing this because they love and care for us? If so, why the big push to do this stuff during an active election? Isn’t that interference?

When Mulgrew ridicules his opponents and the election from the DA podium, in his official position as President, isn’t that interference? When District Representatives have Get Out the Vote parties, and buy people beers, isn’t that interference? When they actually sign voters up on Unity stationary, or direct chapter leaders to do it, isn’t that interference?

Do you believe in love at first sight? That for every drop of rain a flower grows? The Easter Bunny? How about coincidence?

It’s no coincidence that Unity is bending over backward trying to put Humpty Dumpty together again. But we are not called “New York’s Brightest” because we’ll buy the Brooklyn Bridge from the first union boss who offers to sell it to us at a cut-rate price. It’s because we listen, and because we watch. This is the year we hold Michael Mulgrew accountable by supporting ABC.

They know it, too. ABC will abide by the will of the voters. Will Unity? It’s hard to say. There are several instances where they didn’t. In 1985 an opposition candidate defeated them for the HS VP slot. They redid the election and lost by a wider margin. Not only that, but they changed voting rules to make sure those uppity high school teachers never got to choose a VP again. ABC aims to fix that.

When the OT/PT chapter said no to a contract that failed to advance their demands, they held a revote and basically told them, “Take it or leave it.” None of this going back to the table and doing your fundamental job stuff for Unity.

I’d argue all this interference nonsense is an insurance policy they’re creating for themselves in case they lose this election.

Democracy is not a Unity value. That’s why they label NYC Retirees an outside influence, even as many of us happen to be UFT. To them, it’s no problem that NYC Retirees work to help us even as Mulgrew directs his flunkies to lobby against us.

Let’s elect a leadership that works for us, rather than against us. Let’s elect a leadership that will lobby for us instead of Eric Frigging Adams.

If you still have a ballot, vote for ABC and drop it in the mail today.